Field of the Invention
The invention, according to the various embodiments described herein, relates to a testing device, especially a protocol tester, and a method for protocol testing, preferably of mobile-radio systems.
Discussion of the Background
With the assistance of network simulators, it is possible to emulate signaling sequences between mobile-radio networks and mobile-radio devices. In this context, standardized messages are exchanged between network simulator and mobile-radio device as they would proceed in the real mobile-radio network. The goal here is to give the mobile-radio device manufacturer an opportunity to test the implementation of the protocol standard (for example, LTE-UMTS-GSM) for different layers of the mobile-radio protocol with regard to the terminal device. However, the preparation of such signaling sequences, respectively test scenarios can become very complex and requires special knowledge on the part of the testing personnel. In order to simulate protocol sequences on a protocol tester, test cases from mobile-radio authorities (for example, 3 GPP) are proposed and specified (so-called “conformance test cases”), or the users themselves can implement specially staged scenarios on the device itself. For this purpose, there are traditionally different interfaces and programming languages, however, for all applications, the user requires extensive knowledge regarding the mobile-radio protocol and the respectively used interface.